Its not just financial planning under scrutiny but also the actions in the traditional banking areas. Illegal fees, forged client signatures etc.
In 1992 the introduction of compulsory superannuation was one of the greatest govt initiatives of our times and had more reasonable rules such as reasonable benefit limits. The early years since then were fine with most business conducted by pre-existing specialist funds many of which were mutualised. In later years the banks opted to enter into the superannuation market and it’s been downhill since. The previous prudent approach in banking went out the door and large scale scandals began to eventuate. AMP became a listed company and look at where it is now, a disgrace! Apparently on the whole, industry funds have outperformed the private sector mainly bank owned funds.
The banks themselves with their unscrupulous actions made massive profits but their clients returns in the main did not match the industry funds. On top of that we are finding many were defrauded.
The Royal Commission was needed and there is no doubt that it will result in a major shake-up of the Financial services industry whereas if id had not occurred things would have got even worse and we may have had a Financial disaster of mammoth proportions that could have caused USA style economic collapse in Australia as occurred in the USA during the Global Financial Crisis!
